


Heartlines

by obliviongrace



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Phandom Reverse Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obliviongrace/pseuds/obliviongrace
Summary: Phil’s not sure where his creativity has gone. He went to the U.S. for university because he wanted the space to figure out who he was, but halfway through senior year he realizes that didn’t happen. He’s unhappy, his friendships are crumbling, and his art thesis remains untouched. But then he meets Dan, another exchange student from the U.K., and can’t help wondering if he might get a second chance at discovering what’s in his heart.





	1. Monday

**Author's Note:**

> It has been so much fun to participate in the PRB. Thank you to my amazing artist, [akilahthegreat](https://akilahthegreat.tumblr.com/), for starting me off with a good prompt. This was my first gander at an AU, so it was fun to imagine artist!phil and musician!dan. I am unsure if this fic ended up being what you had wished for - it took on a life of its own, as they all do - but I think there is definitely still some light angst in their for you, even if its only Phil's inner angst ;)
> 
> Thank you to [dapgos](https://dapgos.tumblr.com/) for literally being the best beta I've ever had. Their attention to my grammar errors and bad sentence construction was so helpful. Also thank you for keeping up with my last-minute update schedule as I worked around my thesis!
> 
> You can check out Akilah's beautiful art that accompanies the piece [HERE](https://akilahthegreat.tumblr.com/post/173911791977/college-au-artistphil-musiciandan-my-second/). 
> 
> ~feel free to come say hi to me on tumblr, I am [oblivionsgrace](https://oblivionsgrace.tumblr.com/) :)~

Phil was so hungover. His head was pounding and his limbs ached as he forced himself to walk up the hill that separated his house from the main part of campus. He shouldn’t have done those last few shots last night, but it had been the first weekend of second semester and PJ had really wanted them to take a shot at every bar they went to. Their monthly bar hopping nights had been dragging on Phil as of late. As graduation approached, PJ was getting wilder and more determined to have the craziest second semester ever. Phil, on the other hand, felt like he was sinking, and he didn’t know how to confess this to PJ – that he was tired, that he feared failing, that he felt more and more frustrated with his friends every day.

This morning he felt like he was literally sinking, his knees buckling slightly as he trudged up the hill for his 10:30 AM class. It was his sociology class, which made it better, but it was about the role of media and art in society, which made it worse. Phil wasn’t sure how he was feeling about art these days.

When Phil finally reached the building his class was in, he stopped to smoke a cigarette. He’d started smoking as a freshman – another stupid decision he let himself be guided into making by his friends – and he’d been trying to quit for years. He’d recently weaned himself onto just Nicorette gum, and hadn’t bought a pack all year, but he caved and bought one just last week. It was a bleak and dreary January morning, which felt like an appropriate punishment. Winter days had always made him hate himself for being a smoker, and this one was no exception.

He stopped when his cigarette was only halfway gone, finding that he hated the taste more than he liked it this morning. He flicked the remains onto the ground, stepped on it to put it out, and then reached down to pick it up again. On his way into the building he threw the stub into the nearby trash can.

Emma was waiting for him on the bench by the classroom door, like always.

“You look beautiful,” she said, looking up at him through her baseball cap and dark sunglasses.

Phil popped his hip, modeling his gray sweatpants and long-sleeved top. “Thanks, I spent a lot of time on myself this morning.”

“More like spent time over the toilet,” Emma groaned, slouching back into herself.

“Are you also so hungover you want to cry?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

“Yes. But honestly, it was worth it. Last night was so rad.”

Phil forced a smile, fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. They were a dark pink, which he loved, but he was waiting for PJ to give him shit for it. “Yeah.”

“PJ already posted some pictures on Facebook. Check it out.” Emma dug into the pocket of her striped pants and pulled out her phone. She spent a full minute fiddling with her hat and sunglasses to get them out of her eyes before pulling up Facebook and passing the phone to Phil.

Phil took it and studied the photo on the screen. It was of him, Emma, PJ, and the rest of PJ’s crew standing with their arms around each other, their faces glowing and eyes dim from alcohol, the flash causing the outlines of their bodies to stand out against the dark atmosphere of the bar behind them. Phil stared at himself. He was wearing high-waisted torn jeans, a plain white t-shirt with a plain long-sleeve shirt draped over his shoulders. His hair was shorn into a mop-top haircut, his straight black hair sticking out from his scalp and barely even reaching the side of his head. This was not an image of himself that he recognized, but he knew it was an accurate representation of what he looked like now. It was just a very different Phil than the one who had arrived in the U.S. at age 18, fresh-faced and excited about doing art in a country with so many opportunities. That Phil had believed an American liberal arts school was the key to his success. Today’s Phil was exhausted, hungover, and raccoon-eyed from sleep deprivation.

Emma tapped his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly. “Geez, you’re high-strung,” she snorted. “We should probably go to class. It starts in two minutes.”

“Oh, yeah,” Phil said, handing her phone back to her and following her around the corner. People had been passing them while they sat there, but he hadn’t even noticed.

This was definitely his favorite class. It was called Media and Mediation, and focused on the role of media and art in shaping societal norms and reinforcing or subverting power structures. Phil had fallen into sociology classes by accident, taking one when he was Freshman because PJ had. It was about feminism; PJ had hated it, but Phil was fascinated. It had given him several existential crises and caused his brain to expand, and he craved more.

Now, being a senior and a sociology major, he knew almost everyone in the department. This class contained many regulars that he’d had multiple classes with. He found that when different people raised their hands to speak, he could always immediately identify their names and a fact about them: Kenneth, who had worked orientation week this year; Lilly, who had gotten in trouble before for speaking without thinking; Mel, who also did studio art.

There was only one person in the class that Phil wasn’t personally familiar with, and as the professor continued to ask questions and prompt discussion on the readings he didn’t do Phil found himself obsessed with trying to place him. This person sat in the back right corner of the room, almost directly across the table from Phil. Phil remembered from their introductions at the first class that his name was Dan, and he used he/him pronouns. Sitting in his chair, Dan looked rumpled and small, even though Phil knew Dan was just as tall as he was. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with too-long sleeves and a oversized hood. He was also looking down at the table and not saying anything.

Phil tried to tune in to class discussion, but his hungover brain just wasn’t in for it today. He felt bad – this professor was nice and had once given him an extension on a paper. Today they were discussing the potential dangers of social media as platforms that encourage users to create content for free. It was an interesting topic, but kept making Phil think back to that photo of him from last night. He had barely recognized himself.

His eyes shifted back to Dan, and along the way he noticed that Emma was trying to get his attention. She was slouched down, her long red hair now tucked into a bun inside her baseball cap, giving Phil a smirk. She had noticed him staring at Dan. Phil could feel his face turning warm, but he ignored her baiting smile and instead allowed himself to study Dan again. He loved Emma, he really did, but she tended to turn everything into a joke. Phil wanted to be curious about Dan without it meaning something to her.

Class ended after an excruciatingly long ninety minutes. Emma immediately stood up and gestured to Phil, signaling that he should follow her out into the hall. But he ignored her again, and watched as Dan clumsily gathered his things, dropping his phone and folder onto the floor. Maybe it was the lingering hangover, or the bad smoke, or the way that Emma was smirking at him, but Phil felt an overwhelming urge to ditch his friends for lunch and eat with Dan instead. He didn’t even know him, or if he’d say yes, but he had to at least try. He waved goodbye to Emma, and instead walked over to where Dan was still fumbling with his backpack in the corner. Emma flipped him off as she left the room.

“Hey,” Phil said, and he almost startled himself with how gravely his voice sounded.

Dan’s head snapped up, and his eyes displayed a deer-in-headlights quality. “Hi.” Phil immediately felt himself relax when he heard Dan’s voice. He also had a British accent, which Phil had learned when he’d spoken in class for the first time. It had immediately made him like Dan, maybe just because he longed so much for something familiar. 

“You’re Dan, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Phil.”

Dan swung his backpack over his shoulder and looked at Phil again. “Yeah, I remember.”

It made Phil’s stomach feel warm to think that Dan had remembered his name too. “How are you liking this class?”

Dan shrugged. “I…I like it. So far. I’m looking forward to the unit on rap.”

Phil nodded. Dan seemed nervous, and Phil knew he wasn’t the best at small talk. The classroom was completely empty now, so Phil took a deep breath and forced himself to speak boldly and calmly. “I know this is super random, but are you free right now? Would you want to get lunch and talk about the class?”

Dan hadn’t displayed much on his face, his eyes sticking to their half-glazed half-fearful look, but at that he smiled. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Want to get coffee?”

Phil smiled back. “Perfect.”

They walked out of the classroom in awkward silence. Phil started to race through multiple possible conversation starters in his head.

“So why’d you pick this class?” he asked, then instantly hated himself for choosing the most basic one. “Is it just because you like rap?”

“Well, partly. It’s more that I love music. But I also wanted to think about it in a different way, you know?”

“Totally. Are you a music major?”

Dan’s face became slack for a moment, and Phil wondered if he had hit a touchy subject. He was certainly no stranger to avoiding talk about majors.

“Uh, yeah,” Dan said eventually. “I’m a music major. But I’m, uh, thinking of switching to sociology actually.”

“Oh, cool! I’m a sociology major. It’s really fun, and you get to take courses on a wide variety of topics.”

Dan perked up at that. “That’s awesome to hear!”

Phil liked Dan’s smile, he decided. It was large and teeth-y and startlingly white against his all-black ensemble. He wanted to keep seeing it, so he decided that maybe the major conversation wasn’t so bad of a choice, even if he needed to carefully dodge some specific questions that Dan might ask him.

They left the building and walked across campus towards the café, separate from the main cafeteria. This building had lots of windows, allowing the inside to be full of light, which Phil liked, and a patio that was usually packed, but not during this time of year. Phil was about to ask Dan another question about his major dilemma when Dan grabbed Phil’s hand. It wasn’t a hand holding grab, as Dan didn’t weave his fingers through Phil’s, but still he could feel Dan’s entire palm as it curled around Phil’s hand. This alarmed him greatly, as Dan hadn’t stood that near to him as they were walking. Before Phil could say anything, Dan tugged him to the side and rerouted them towards an area covered with trees.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” Phil managed to say as Dan pulled him behind one of the tree trunks, letting go of his hand.

“You want to make out, right?”

Phil felt his face turning red again. “What?”

“You want to make out,” Dan repeated. His face remained alarmingly pale in comparison to Phil’s, although he was also huffing a little. “I noticed you looking at me today. You stared at me for basically all of class.”

That made Phil turn scarlet. “You  _ noticed _ ?” he squeaked. Of course, he had been so stupid to think that Dan was really looking down the whole time, or that he couldn’t see Phil out of the corner of his eye.

Dan smiled. “Yeah. And I’m down if you are.” Dan started to move quickly, or it might have been that time sped up, and Phil struggled to register what was happening as he saw Dan’s face move closer to his. He was embarrassed, because here was a cute boy who wanted to hook up with him, and that’s not what he wanted, even though Phil knew that’s what he  _ should  _ want. Everything about him – his clothes, his friends, his major – said that should be what he wanted. And he had wanted that in the past, bulldozing through his friend group Freshman and Sophomore year until there was hardly a single person he hadn’t at least made out with. But he felt tired now, and so different.

“Wait,” Phil managed to gasp, just as Dan’s lips were about to touch his. He grabbed Dan’s shoulders and wrenched him backwards. “No, I…this wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t trying to get you to hook up with me. I was staring at you in class, I admit. And that’s super embarrassing that you noticed, but…. I just thought you looked nice. And also cute. But I mostly I was thinking that you looked just as tired as I feel. I wanted to get to know you.”

“Oh,” Dan said, and then it became painfully silent. “I’m sorry,” Dan muttered, and even though he matched Phil’s height he began to shrink again, sinking like Phil was this morning. “God, I’m such an idiot.”

“No,” Phil interjected. “It’s fine. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s all good. I’d still like to get lunch if you would–”

“I’m just not great at reading signals, you know?” Dan blurted out, cutting Phil off. His voice grew high, and his fidgeting increased to a pace that told Phil he was panicking slightly. “I’ve really been wanting to hook up with some guys, and it’s so goddamn hard to know who’s interested and who’s not. And when I saw you staring at me I thought,  _ this  _ must be it, and I just went for it, you know? Which I know is probably stupid, but you’re this popular senior and it’s so hard to come into the scene as a freshman and so I thought–”

“Wait,” Phil said, his heart rising to his throat. “You’re a  _ freshman _ ?”

Dan stared at him for a moment, and then said, “Yes. I thought you knew that?”

“No, I–” Phil’s train of thought was interrupted by a noise that he heard to his left. He turned to see that a group of people had noticed them in the trees were staring and, to his great horror, giggling. They’d definitely heard his and Dan’s conversation. “Shit,” Phil said, turning to look at Dan again. He still looked like he was panicking, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes cast downwards. “I’m going to get so much shit for this.”

\- - -

Phil ran home after that. He felt bad leaving Dan standing there, clearly embarrassed and ashamed, but Phil was embarrassed himself. A cute guy had wanted to hook up with him, and he was running away?

Dan’s age only made it worse, of course. Dan wasn’t lying when he’d said that Phil was a popular senior. Phil had made friends with PJ during orientation week freshman year, and PJ-the-extrovert immediately adopted Phil-the-introvert into the “cool” art crowd. Phil had loved art even before starting college. Back in Rossendale he’d done art for his GSCEs and thought he was rather good. He was  _ creative _ , he knew that. But a lot of the art crowd here were  _ talented  _ in a way that Phil feared he wasn’t. He had made friends with watercolor painters and sketch artists – and PJ, who was an amazing doodler. And the truth was, Phil couldn’t  _ draw  _ for shit.

But Phil was considered artsy and cool, and he’d found a good amount of social capital in the queer art crowd, and then there was Dan, who was a  _ freshman _ – “Shit!” Phil’s spiral of panicked thoughts was interrupted by a sudden stitch in his side. He had been running,  _ sprinting  _ away from the trees,towards his house, and even though running downhill was easier than walking up it he still found himself doubling over in pain. He was not fit. And the years of smoking hadn’t helped, either.

He half-fell, half-sat down into the grass, and cradled his head in his hands. There was little consensus on whether it was okay to hook up with freshman. Emma was a strong proponent of the mantra, “freshman are friends, not food.” PJ was okay with it, as long as you just wanted sex and nothing else. The hook up culture was dizzying here, especially inside their friend group, and though Phil had found great enjoyment in it early on, now he was 22, about to graduate. He didn’t recognize himself in photos anymore. He was tired. And maybe he had run away because he liked Dan, thought he seemed nice, just wanted a friend. Phil kept picturing Dan’s panicked face when Phil had pushed him backwards. His eyes, which Phil had previously only seen look either terrified or happy, looked sad, the corners drooping downwards. His hair, which was long and straightened like Phil’s, fell over his forehead, and he’d looked so lost. He didn’t want to watch PJ make fun of him like he did with everyone else.

When Phil got home, he immediately turned his phone off, not wanting to deal with anything his friends might want to say to him right now. Since that had been his only class of the day, he decided to skip all social events and instead lie in his bed and listen to an old Paramore album. It wasn’t the kind of music he’d break out in front of his friends, but sometimes he liked listening to it in his own time. It reminded him of exploring Manchester with his friends from sixth form, and going on long car rides with his brother. He thought about getting up, about going outside, about actually doing something – but where would he go? This school was far too small for him to avoid any mention of what had happened with Dan. And every spot on this campus was now marked with three and half years of memories that Phil didn’t know how to feel about. He could go to his art studio, but – no. He couldn’t even think about the disaster that was waiting for him there.


	2. Tuesday

After a night of weird half-sleep, Phil decided to check his phone. He had five unread texts. Three of them were from Emma:

_ hey I heard you tried to make out with a freshman _

_ was it that small boy you were staring at in class?? _

_ When you decide to get ur head out of ur ass, come eat lunch with us. We’ll be in the café at 12. PJ’s gonna be passing out fliers for into the woods. _

Phil groaned. He should probably go. He checked the two other text messages, which were from an unknown number:

_ hey im so so sorry about what i did yesterday. i feel really embarrassed and honestly i’d love to be friends too. if ur willing to give me another chance pls let me know. _

_ by the way i got ur number from PJ hope that’s ok _

Phil read over the text multiple times before it really sunk in. Was this from Dan? He’d gotten his number from  _ PJ _ ? How did he know PJ?

He pulled himself out of bed and threw on a pair of blue striped cloth pants and a yellow t-shirt. He was okay with being bright today. It was time to face the music, anyways.

Phil first spotted Emma in the café. She was sitting at the only round table, which was big enough for six people. The other five seats were covered in backpacks and coats. Emma was wearing a red baseball cap that almost matched the color of her hair, and sunglasses with bright green lenses. She looked up at Phil and pulled off her sunglasses. “Well, well, well, he emerges.”

“Hi,” Phil said as he sat down on the edge of on the seats, his back pushed up against someone’s backpack.

“Those are Mel’s things,” Emma said, pointing to the stuff behind him.

“Great,” Phil said.

“You look disgusting.”

Phil groaned. “Is this some new bit where you always comment on my appearance?”

Emma shrugged. “Just being honest. So what’s up with you? What the hell happened yesterday with that small kid?”

For some reason, Phil felt himself prickling up at that. “He’s not small,” he snapped. “He’s just as tall as I am.”

“Okay,” Emma drawled. “Why’d you ditch me for him?”

“I wanted to talk to him.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

Phil took in a deep breath, through his nose and out his mouth. Here it comes. Rumors spread and exaggerate themselves far too quickly here for Phil to keep up with them. He’d had a string of them be spread about himself at the beginning of his freshman year, when he went from being a quiet and shy person to hooking up with a lot of people. The dissonance there confused a lot of people, and they constantly talked about until Phil started to make himself more inconspicuous in his choices. 

As Phil started to respond, he felt two hands fall on his shoulders. “I heard you tried to fuck him.” 

Phil snapped his head back to look at PJ at the exact moment that PJ leaned down to place a kiss on his cheek. “I didn’t try to fuck him,” he protested as PJ squished in his cheek. “I invited him to get coffee with me, and he thought that was me coming on to him. He pulled me aside and tried to kiss me. The whole thing was a misunderstanding.”

“Because he’s a freshman, right?” PJ said as he sat down next to Emma. “Young and innocent.”

“Yes, he’s a freshman,” Phil said, glaring at PJ. “A freshman who you gave my number to?”

PJ shrugged. “He texted me asking for it. I had guessed that you two had hooked up and then you had tried to give him the slip. So I gave him your number because, I must admit, I enjoy the potential drama of it all.”

“How do you know him?” Phil asked, fearful of what the answer could be.

“He plays pit for  _ Into the Woods _ . Which you better be coming to, by the way.” PJ pushed the stack of fliers towards him and signaled that he should take one. Phil took one of the top and slid it into the side pocket of his backpack without glancing at any of the details. Sometimes it startled Phil to remember that PJ does theater on campus. He just doesn’t think of PJ as a theater  _ person _ , because he’s very gruff and into rock and roll. Sometimes it seems like he does theater just because he thinks he can succeed in it and wants the attention, which rubs Phil the wrong way.

“We shouldn’t tease him, guys,” Phil said to both Emma and PJ. “He’s just come to this school, to a new  _ country _ , trying to figure out what his sexuality is. That’s a difficult thing to do.”

“Forget him,” PJ said. “I’m interested in  _ you _ , Phillip Lester, who’s turning into a freshman eater in the second semester of your senior year.”

“I’m absolutely not,” Phil groaned. “ _ Please  _ don’t say that PJ. You’re gross.”

PJ rolled his eyes. “So,what’s up with you then? You’ve been acting  weird since winter break. You, like, drop off the map for Christmas, don’t answer any of our texts. And then when we get back you’re all weird and antisocial and start ditching us for a freshman dude. Are you stressed about your thesis?”

Phil tensed up.  _ Don’t ask me about it _ , he thought.  _ Don’t make me talk about it _ . His thesis was nothing, really, a disaster sitting in his art studio waiting to be laughed at. Phil didn’t know how to respond, because everything PJ said was true. He had been weird since winter break. He’d gone home, even though it was a super expensive trip for only three weeks there, because right before the end of first semester he’d been struck with a weird sense of homesickness. He’d found himself hating the geography of the east coast, and just wanted to go back to where everything made sense. And he’d planned to do a lot of research for his thesis there so that when he came back he could start building the final product. His thesis was the project that was supposed to be the culmination of all of his time here, of everything he’d learned  But over winter break he’d realized he wasn’t sure he’d learned anything worthwhile.

“No,” Phil lied. “I’m just tired.”

“Well, man up,” PJ said, slapping Phil on the shoulder.

“Oh, PJ,” Emma groaned. “Really? You’re going to pull out that ‘man up’bullshit? Maybe Phil is really not okay.” Phil turned to Emma and gave her a little smile. She was overwhelming sometimes, but he appreciated her ability to balance sarcasm with genuine care.

“Or maybe he’s just being stupid,” PJ  countered. “You need to get out of this funk, Phil. Go have sex with that freshman dude if that’s what it takes.”

“His name is Dan,” Phil said softly.

“Okay, go have sex with Dan.”

“Or not,” Emma countered. “If that’s not what you want. God, PJ!” Emma threw a crumpled up napkin at PJ, and at that moment Mel came up to the table. They turned to Phil and smiled at him through their frayed bangs.

“Hey, Phil. You’re sitting in my stuff.”

“Ah, sorry,” Phil said quietly, getting up and pushing the seat towards Mel. “You know what, I think I’m going to go anyways.” 

Sometimes, when Phil was in the middle of a conversation he really didn’t want to be a part of, he felt himself shutting down. He became strangely aware of the kind of person he was supposed to be – loud, strong, vibrant, manly – and completely forgot how to be him. He felt himself turtling, pulling his neck down into his shoulders and softening his voice. He tried to prevent himself from shaking as he fumbled with the straps of his backpack as he swung it onto his shoulders. After double-checking that he had all of his things, he forced a smile to PJ. “See you later,” he said. And then he got the hell out of there.

\- - -

When it came down to it and Phil had to choose a concentration for his art major, he chose sculpturing, because while he isn’t great at drawing things on paper, he loves shapes. Phil might not be able to draw a table, but he can picture the placement of a table in a wide variety of weird places, and then imbue meaning into it. He can place a table on top of a pillar made of cereal boxes and call it a modern umbrella. He can fuse two items together and create commentary about the world.

Phil wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, or how he’d stumbled into art, but he knew he wanted to make  _ meaning _ , and sculpture seemed good for that. He’d found meaning in sculptures early on – in his high school art history class he’d stared at a photo of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David. While most of his classmates drooled over sculptures of naked women with their curves and breasts, he’d been fascinated by David’s ab muscles, and his marble nipples, and the shape of his penis. He stared at David every day for a year before realizing, suddenly, that it wasn’t just David he was attracted to.

Phil craved meaning and creativity and understanding of what was happening in his heart. He wanted to access more than just who he was supposed to be, what others always told him he was – a lanky straight male. Discovering his sexuality had done a lot to undo that, but it wasn’t enough. Even the sculpture of David, while exhibiting the naked male form, was the epitome of  _ masculinity _ : muscles and strength and a power pose. And Phil found himself wondering, was that all there was?

\- - -

Phil seemed to be running a lot recently, which was ironic considering how much he hated exercise. Once he felt he was far enough away from the café and his friends, he stopped to catch his breath, leaning over and bracing his hands on his knees. Once he was breathing evenly again, he pulled out his phone. The text from Dan was still staring at him in his notifications:

_ hey im so so sorry about what i did yesterday. i feel really embarrassed and honestly i’d love to be friends too. if ur willing to give me another chance pls let me know. _

He really did want to give Dan another chance. He was alarmed, actually, by how much he wanted to, and he would’ve called Dan right then and there if he didn’t think it would be too weird. So instead, he spent five minutes worrying about and composing  a text back:

_ Hey. Don’t worry about it too much. I am interested in giving you another chance _ .  _ Want to get coffee today? And by coffee I really do mean  _ * _ coffee* :P _

After some back and forth Phil decided to delete that last sentence, and sent the text. He didn’t have any classes until mid-afternoon, and it was only a little past noon now, so he hoped Dan responded soon.

Phil didn’t have anything else to do until then, so he lit up a cigarette. 

He’d started smoking because PJ did. He couldn’t really say that PJ had pressured him into it, because truthfully he hadn’t. But after meeting PJ during orientation, Phil was always around him because he didn’t know where else to go. They jammed out to music together. They went to parties together. And they texted each other in the morning when they had terrible hangovers, and they went to hangover-brunch together. So when he noticed PJ smoked a lot, they started smoking together. It was the pinnacle beginning of college experience where everyone just wants everyone to like them, so they do their best to mold themselves into people they think others want them to be. Making friends as a freshman in college wasn’t about finding your true self, but finding people who you pretended well with. Although, sociology would say that one’s true self doesn’t really exist anyways, and we’re always performing different selves. It was interesting, but right now the thought made Phil’s head hurt.

He reached the end of his cigarette and flicked it onto the ground. There was no trash can around, so after stubbing it out he picked it back up and placed it in his back pocket. Gross, but made him feel better about himself.

He was really lonely, he realized.

Just then, Dan texted back, and the suddenness of the vibration almost made him trip and fall. He pulled his phone out too fast, almost dropping it twice.

_ yes coffee sounds great. i’d say i’m busy right now because i want to sound cool, but it’s not true. i’m just sitting in my dorm room and thinking about how it looks like a prison. Want to meet at the café in 10? _

This boy was funny, Phil thought. He was reserved but also sometimes so emotionally transparent that it gave Phil whiplash. His authenticity was cute. He texted back:

_ Yes! see you then. _

It wasn’t until Phil returned to the café that he realized how stupid he was: his friends could still be here. He entered the café but stood by the door, trying to look inconspicuous as he slowly panned over the round table where they’d been sitting. Thankfully, there was only one person at the table, and it was Mel. Phil admired Mel because he felt they’d accomplished want he’d wanted to do but failed at. Mel was quiet and unassuming, but also a clearly distinct person who demanded a certain amount of space and respect. Mel was a part of his friend group but also not. They drifted in and out based on when they appeared to desire company or be alone, and Phil was envious of how everyone had accepted that. And they were kinder than everyone else. Phil took a deep breath and walked towards the table – there was no reason to be afraid of them.

“Hey, Mel,” he said, sitting in the seat opposite of them, where PJ had previously been sitting.

Mel looked up from the book they were reading, clearly a little startled by Phil’s sudden appearance, but they smiled. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have a good weekend?”

Phil almost lied, but then didn’t. “It wasn’t the best. How about yours?”

“It was pretty good, actually. I went to a gallery showing in the city. I’m sorry about yours, though.” Mel switched back to Phil’s feelings before he could comment on theirs, and he felt bad but also grateful. Mel gave him a smile as they adjusted their blunt black bangs.

“Oh, yeah. Well. I think I just need to sleep more.” It was a half-truth, and Phil felt better about that than a lie. He was about to ask Mel something about the gallery show when he saw Dan walk through the door. “Oh,” he said, and his eyes must have displayed some panic because Mel turned around to follow his gaze.

“That’s the freshman kid, right?” they asked.

“Yeah,” Phil said. “I’m meeting him here for coffee.” Dan caught his eyes, and Phil raised his hand to wave him over. “I’m not sure what’s so important or significant about this,” he muttered, half to Mel and half to himself, because he was confused as to why his heart was beating so strongly. He’d established such a  _ life  _ here at college, such a routine, and had settled right into a daily rhythm where everything felt a bit dull. But this – him noticing Dan, Dan approaching him now, even Dan’s failed hookup request – all felt more exciting than the past year of his life. And that made him feel silly and a little stupid.

“You seem more interested in him than PJ and Emma and the others. That hurts them,” Mel explained. Mel brought their hands up to their face and flicked them outwards. “I’m not saying they deserve your interest, but that’s what makes him such a big deal to them. Because you’re acting like he’s more significant than the rest of your life right now.”

Mel didn’t sound angry, but Phil still felt guilt drop into his stomach. “I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Hey,” Dan said then, and all of Phil’s attention was sucked towards him. He wore grey jeans and a black sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was smaller than yesterday’s so Dan looked properly tall. His hair was also clearly freshly washed, and  _ curly _ . Phil blinked – he was definitely cute.

“Hey,” he said, self-conscious again of how low his voice sounded. “Let’s go find a different table.”

Mel turned and held their hand out to Dan. “Hi, I’m Mel,” they said. It was a formal gesture, true, but Phil thought it was so cute how flustered Dan got in response. 

“O-Oh,” he stumbled. “Hi, I’m Dan.”

“Dan,” Mel repeated, smiling at Phil. “Nice to know your name.”

Mel kept smiling at Phil, and he thought he might explode under the pressure. “Okay,” he said, jumping up and flailing his body forwards. “I think I saw an empty table near the back.” He started to walk away from the table without even saying goodbye to Mel or waiting for Dan, and then he began to panic over how potentially creepy that had sounded. Near the back? Why did they need to go to the back?

When they reached the table, Phil sat down and Dan dropped his backpack onto the ground. “Hi,” Dan said, a little breathless.

“Hi,” Phil said. As Dan started to sit down he added, “Why don’t we order some coffee first?”

Dan jumped back up, “Oh, yeah,” and then scuttled away to the line. Phil followed at a similar speed. He felt better knowing that Dan was similarly jittery.

After they’d ordered and picked up their coffees, they settled back down at the table. “It’s awkward,” Dan said immediately. “Because of what I did yesterday.”

Phil took a deep breath, promising to himself that he wouldn’t stare at the floor for this whole conversation and would instead look Dan in the eyes. He had already noticed that Dan had pretty eyes, soft and brown. “Yeah,” he said, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible. “That’s okay. It can be hard to know.” Phil could tell that had been the right thing to say, because Dan smiled and relaxed into his seat a bit. Before the panicked look could return to Dan’s eyes, Phil found himself launching into an explanation. “I was staring at you in class that day because” –  _ I think you’re cute. You look as sad as I feel. I thought maybe we were similarly disenchanted _ . – all of these statements, all true, whipped through Phil’s head in less than a second, but he found himself unable to say any of them. “Because I realized that I didn’t know you. But I’d like to get to know you.”

This seemed to make Dan a little nervous. “Oh. Getting know me. Wow, where to start.”

Dan’s spry smile made it clear he was making fun of himself, but Phil had decided to keep plowing forwards. “Well, as a starting place you’re clearly also British.”

That made Dan smile. “Yes. Can you imagine if I was faking this accent just to get guys? I mean, it would probably work, but wow.” 

Phil liked when Dan loosened up. His shoulders dropped, his back straightened, and his eyes looked less darkened. “Where are you from?”

“Wokingham.”

“Ah, the  _ south _ .”

Dan smiled. “I feel like I can guess you’re from somewhere in the north.”

“Rossendale,” Phil confirmed. “So pretty close to Manchester.”

“Why did you decide to come to the U.S. for college?”

“I wanted some distance to try to figure out who I was. And I wanted to go somewhere exciting.” Phil paused to fiddle with the cardboard band around his coffee cup. “That is probably more the real reason, to be honest. But I think it sounds kind of stupid now, because here we are in the middle of nowhere on the east coast, and it’s not that exciting.”

“True. But how could you have known? I think it makes sense.”

Phil conceded with a shrug. “What about you?”

“The same, really. My parents wanted me to study law, and I really didn’t want that. I knew I wanted to something like philosophy or English, but my parents were never going to let me do that at a school in the U.K. By going to a liberal arts school in the U.S. I got away with it because I could said I was gaining international living experience.”

Phil’s eyes widened. “I could never imagine you as a lawyer!” he gasped, and then blushed. “I mean, no offense.”

“Oh, none taken,” Dan laughed. “You’re right, I would’ve been a terrible lawyer.”

“But you like sociology?” Phil asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re thinking of switching majors?”

Dan slouched in his chair a bit and looked up at Phil sheepishly. “Well, I’m a freshman, so I haven’t declared anything yet.” Phil realized then why Dan had looked so confused when Phil had asked him this question the first time, and he felt his face turn a little red. “But, yeah, switching from music.”

“Right! cool. Music is cool.” Dan grimaced in response. “Or not?”

Dan groaned and flopped his head back onto the back of his chair, the most expressive Phil had seen him all day. “I don’t know. I haven’t really been feeling it lately. I took some music classes last semester and they didn’t seem to fit. Really, I’d like to record music, but I don’t think I’ve met the right people on campus to do that.”

“Who have you met on campus?”

Dan turned a slight shade of pink. “Theater people.”

“Why do you look so embarrassed? Theater people are cool!”

“Yeah, I think they are. But I haven’t really felt like I fit in with them. They’re... intense.” Dan said  _ intense  _ carefully and particularly, as if he was trying to get something across to Phil without saying it, though what that was, Phil had no idea.Dan cleared his throat and leaned forward a little closer to him. “Your friend is one of them. Uh, PJ? That’s who I got your number from.”

Phil was able to keep his face neutral, because he’d seen this mention coming. “Oh, yeah. PJ. He’s cool.” Dan nodded, and leaned back. Phil  _ hated  _ that, because as soon as he did, Phil discovered that he smelled very good. He hadn’t noticed it when Dan had tried to kiss him, but now he found himself wanting to pull Dan forward again. Instead, he leaned back quickly, feeling embarrassed that his feelings were all over the place about this boy.

“Well, PJ is in the play I’m playing orchestra for right now,” Dan continued.

“Yeah,  _ Into the Woods _ . PJ told me. What instrument are you playing?”

“Piano.”

“Cool.”

Dan gave a shrug in response, which seemed to reflect his entire attitude about the music thing. Phil felt unconvinced, like Dan really cared a lot more about it than he was letting on, but he decided not to pry. He was not one to talk, after all.

Their conversation fell into a natural lull, which made Phil start mentally scrambling for conversation topics again. At the same time another voice in his head was saying that maybe he shouldn’t be so uncomfortable with the silence; maybe that was what Dan wanted, some quiet solidarity.

But then Dan spoke so quiet and slow that Phil had to lean forward this time. “So, are you, uh,  _ out _ here?” Dan stressed the word  _ out _ , clearly nervous that Phil wouldn’t pick up which out-ness was referring to. He immediately smiled to reassure Dan that he did. But he also felt embarrassed, because he realized that maybe Dan wasn’t actually into him at all, attempted hook up aside. Maybe all Dan wanted was a mentor for navigating his sexuality on campus. “Yeah. I came out as bisexual pretty soon after I got here. It was much easier than I thought it would be. I met the right people, I think.”

“Cool,” Dan said, and his eyes were gleaming a little bit, he still looked incredibly nervous. He leaned his head onto his left hand and began messing with his fringe, which Phil thought was extremely cute. He had never seen Dan’s hair curly before, but he liked it, maybe better than when it was straight. Something about the curls made Dan look less sad.

“So if you’re thinking of switching to sociology, I could be like your senior mentor,” Phil said softly, trying to continue the previous topic of conversation while also not continuing it. “Help you make the decision.”

Dan flopped his fringe back and smiled. “That would be nice. You’re doing a thesis, right?”

Phil had set himself up for that one. “Ah – yeah. A sculpture thesis.”

“What’s it about?”

Phil paused, and considered lying. “It’s supposed to be about male friendship within the confines of masculinity and homophobia.”

“Supposed to be?”

“Well that explanation doesn’t really flow off the tongue, does it? I’m working on it.”

“Why don’t you show it to me?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Phil’s voice came out harsher than he meant it to, and Dan shrunk back. “Oh.”

“No, not because I don’t want to show you,” Phil insisted, leaning forward, and for a crazy moment he wanted to slide his hands across the table to where Dan’s were splayed out. “It’s just…. I’m insecure about my work. I find it difficult to show people unfinished projects.”

“I understand,” Dan said a bit distractedly. He had noticed Phil’s hands. He was staring at them, and Phil could’ve sworn he saw Dan’s fingers twitch forward a millimeter. It made Phil feel like he was ten, playing a game of who-will-cave-first, and Phil really wanted it to be Dan. But Dan’s voice broke through before his fingers did, saying “I have an afternoon class, so I have to go soon. But this was fun.”

Phil quickly leaned back, feeling nervous about how this would end. “Yeah, it was! But you’re liking it here?” Phil tried to stand up quickly to gather his stuff first, but ended up getting his foot caught behind one of the legs of the chair, and tripping forward slightly. He threw his arms out and caught himself on the table.

Dan laughed at that, big and loud. “Yeah. I’ve just got to figure out what the hell I’m doing.”

Dan’s chuckling made Phil laugh too, and he realized this was the first time he’d laughed in a while. “We should hang out again!” Phil said. “I mean, if we wanna be friends?”

Dan gave Phil a look that was half happiness and half exasperation. It was a  _ the first time we really met I tried to hook up with you and humiliated myself and you really gave me another chance? _ look. “Yes. I think we want that.”

\- - -

Sitting in Phil’s art studio was his thesis. Currently, it was this: a traffic cone he’d stolen from the street, a pair of cactus-print socks from his sock drawer, the blue-and-green checkered bedspread from his childhood bedroom, and an old bookshelf that used to belong to his grandma. He’d arranged and rearranged the items many times, but always ended up deconstructing whatever he created. Now, they were all just strewn on the tarp that he’d laid down.

He hadn’t lied to Dan about the topic of his thesis, but he hadn’t exactly told the truth either. He had started with the topic of male friendship, as he did find it interesting. Even beyond the men he found attractive, or fell in love with, Phil had always valued his male friends. But when he came out, suddenly the lines between sex and friendship and romance started to get blurred. Which wasn’t a problem on its own, but it came with a separation between sex and emotions. Even though he was having sex with men, to be emotional outside of sex or within friendship was still un-manly, weak.

Phil had wanted to make his sculpture about masculinity, or toxic masculinity, but over winter break he’d had a realization that had sent him into crisis. His dissatisfaction with school life had already been brewing, so he’d gone home to find relief in his parents and brother. His aunt and uncle had come round for Christmas too, which was nice. While Phil had longed for the freedom of university, and had specifically chosen to go to the U.S. so he could gain some distance, he still reveled in family life.

Christmas day, they’d all been unwrapping their presents, and Phil’s uncle handed him a big box wrapped in red paper. He unwrapped it to find a huge cordless hammer drill. He immediately became very aware of how his face looked – Surprised? Confused? He needed to look thankful. He smiled. “Thanks,” he said.

“It’s to help you acquire some manly hobbies,” his uncle said, and he was laughing, like it was clearly a joke, but it also wasn’t. It was a nervous  _ we know you’re not manly and we’re going to be supportive but we also kind of want you to be manlier _ laugh. It had made Phil feel self-conscious, defensive, but also weirdly determined to show his uncle that he  _ could  _ be manly. That he didn’t fall into some effeminate stereotype. He’d spent an entire afternoon letting his uncle teach him how to use it. But after his aunt and uncle left, he put the drill straight back into the box, and stashed it under his bed. It made him feel almost dirty.

Because Phil was more feminine. He was long and sometimes clumsy and sometimes graceful and emotional. He love to feel things – sad, happy, excited, passionate. That was the reason he’d chosen art. That was the reason he loved it so much, even though he was shit at so many aspects of it. He loved being creative. It made him feel alive. But it was feminine, and the cordless hammer drill was masculine.

The whole incident made him realize that he didn’t want to make his thesis about masculinity at all. He wanted to make his thesis about femininity, and the emotionality repressed by masculinity. But he couldn’t imagine how to actually do that. The idea was fully formed somewhere in his brain, but it got stuck somewhere in the translation between his brain and his result. Because he wasn’t sure he’d fully lived out his emotions here, even though it was a liberal arts school. And he wasn’t sure that such a topic would be supported by his current friend group. How ironic.

\- - -

After going to his afternoon classes, Phil spent the evening in his art studio, staring at his work, crying, panicking over how little progress he’d made, how close the due date was, He tried to make something, hated it, and went outside in a huff to smoke a cigarette. This was the torturous cycle that he almost always fell into when trying to do anything on his thesis post-break.

He reached a breaking point at around 11PM. He’d made no real progress, and he hated his most recent organization: the bookcase was placed on its back, the chair was carefully placed on top of the bookcase, with its front and back legs placed in different shelves, his duvet hungover the chair to create a tent, and the socks were inside the tent. It was meant to be a portrait of childhood innocence as freedom from toxic masculinity. And maybe it got that message across, but it still made Phil feel unhappy.

He angrily ripped the duvet off the chair and collapsed on it, exhausted. He thought about texting Mel, feeling like maybe they could be comforting, but the two of them weren’t that close, and Phil didn’t want to make his feelings their responsibility. He hated that. It was one of the reason none of his hookups had never translated into a more romantic relationship.

He was about to stand back up, thinking he might attempt one more arrangement tonight, when his phone rang. He lifted up his butt to dig it out of his back pocket. The screen displayed PJ’s name, along with a picture of him smirking while holding a guitar. Phil so dreaded going back to work that he couldn’t think of a good reason to not answer it.

“Hey,” he said, leaning over and resting his head in the palm of his left hand.

“Phil! Where were you tonight?” PJ’s voice was muffled, and Phil could tell he was in a room with lots of people.

“Where was I?”

“Why weren’t you at my show tonight?”

Shit. It was opening night of PJ’s play. Phil had completely forgotten. Not that he really wanted to go, anyways, but him having completely forgotten was going to make this much worse.

“Ah, sorry,” Phil said, his head still resting on his palm. “I was…working on my thesis.”

PJ snorted. “Bullshit. We all know you’ve barely done any work on that thing. Or any work you have done you’ve immediately disassembled.” It was true, but hearing PJ say it stung.

“Yeah, well I’m trying to change that.”

“Phil,” PJ whined, his voice dragging out the last two letters. “Just give up already. So you won’t finish your thesis. That’s fine! It’s our last semester of college. Loosen up a little.”

Phil clenched the hand that had been holding up his head. He hadn’t been in a good enough mood to answer this call. “All I’ve done in college is loosen up!” he argued. “What if I don’t want to loosen up anymore?”

PJ scoffed loudly. Phil could tell from the way his voice had slurred throughout the conversation that he was drunk, and he was always a fussy drunk, easily insulted. “What, I’m not good enough for you? The parties that I invite you to aren’t fun enough?”

“No, PJ,” Phil said, cutting him off. “That’s not what I mean. I just–.” He stopped and took a deep breath, as his voice had been rising in volume and pitch, and he didn’t want to cry while talking to PJ. “I’m not happy right now. And I don’t want to end college not happy. I don’t want to go back home feeling unhappier than when I arrived here.”

“Is this why you tried to hook up with that freshman kid? Because you’re feeling nostalgic?”

“No, it’s not,.and I didn’t try to hook up with him. But I have been hanging out with him. Because he’s actually a nice person, nicer than you, PJ. He’s actually a nice person. I wish you wouldn’t be so judgmental.”

“Whatever. I didn’t call you to be your shrink. I don’t want to talk to you if you’re going to be like this.”

“Fine,” Phil said softly. He hated fighting and didn’t want to do it with PJ. Which had maybe been the problem, the thing that had allowed their friendship to go on like it did for so many years. But now he felt a little more like fighting, even though it was unnatural to him. “Bye,” he said, even though PJ had already hung up.

Phil decided that he wanted a smoke, and walked down the narrow staircase from his studio. His mind was in such a twist from frustration and fighting with PJ that he placed an unlit cigarette in his mouth and stormed out the door before realizing that it was raining. Not snowing, but  _ freezing  _ rain, the worst kind. And especially the worst kind for Phil. He was so damn clumsy that he could trip on perfectly dry flat ground, nevermind wet and slippery – another reason why all this recent running was dangerous for him. But he felt extremely restless, so he tossed the now-soaked cigarette into the trash by the door, threw up the hood of his jacket, stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets, and braved the icy sidewalk.

He kept his head down, knowing that though it was unlikely anyone else was outside, he still wanted to make sure he didn’t see anyone. Sometimes Phil didn’t want to talk to anyone, though at college he’d always felt the pressure to. It was difficult to spend time alone and have a social life. Attending parties with PJ and Emma had put Phil on the map, and suddenly people started to come up and say hi to him on the street. He never knew how to respond, and he’d normally end up making a dorky face or doing an over-the-top wave, and then later hating himself for it.

He wondered how Emma was going to respond to his and PJ’s fight. He feared that she was just going to ignore it – that’s how people in their friend group normally dealt with conflict. He wasn’t as interested in her response, though, because it probably wasn’t going to surprise him. He wanted to tell  _ Dan  _ about what was happening.

Phil had gotten so into his head that he’d stopped paying enough attention to his feet. He slipped on an icy spot on the sidewalk, slumping backwards and falling on his ass.

“Ouch,” he yelped, and rolled over on one side. As he carefully massaged the now sore spot on his butt, he looked out across the running path that leads to the end of the art side of campus, and spotted a figure running in his direction. The person was very tall, with spirals of curly hair sticking out from the top of their head, and Phil got the feeling of a premonition in his stomach before he even saw their face. It was  _ Dan _ .

“Hey,” he yelled out. He knew that if this wasn’t Dan he was risking looking crazy, but he could feel that it had to be him. The universe had to give this to him.

The figure stopped and started slowly walking towards Phil instead. Phil carefully rose to his feet and waved his hand wildly so that they could see it through the dark and the rain. “Dan?”

“Phil?” The figure walked faster, and once they were a few feet away Phil sighed in relief.

“Dan. Hi!”

“Hi,” Dan said back timidly, a bit confused. Phil knew that he sounded overly joyful for someone in the freezing rain, but he couldn’t believe Dan had actually showed up when he’d wanted to see him more than anything else. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Fine. I just tripped on the sidewalk. I was thinking instead of watching my feet, which is the biggest mistake I could make. I’m just clumsy, you know – or, maybe you don’t know. Well, I’m clumsy.” He was nervous. He hated that he was nervous, and thought that maybe he understood how Dan had felt during their first meeting: shaky, cold, nervous, but determined to make a connection.

“Yeah,” Dan sort of shiver-laughed. Phil stepped closer to him so he could clearly see Dan’s face. He noticed that it was streaked with water. It was raining outside, sure, but these streaks looked more wide and blotched than rain-water. And they ran right up to Dan’s eyes. Dan had been crying. Phil recognized that clearly, and he recognized the move to walk outside in the rain when crying so that it was harder for anyone to notice. He’d done that himself, dozens of times, freshman year. He’d cried in the shower and then cried outside and then, when the post-cry exhaustion hit him, he’d curled up in his small twin bed and listened to music.

He wondered if Dan had been doing that this whole year. He didn’t want to let Dan’s feelings go unmentioned.

“Hey,” he said, his voice a lot softer now. “Are you crying?”

Dan jerked his head back, pulling his hood down more. “What? No.” But then he sniffed, and looked straight into Phil’s eyes. The nerves returned to Phil’s stomach, jumping and fluttering around. Phil had been with Dan in a classroom, behind a tree, and in a café, but something about standing so close to him in the dark made everything feel different. He didn’t know Dan that well, and Dan didn’t really know him, but he felt like Dan still knew him better than anyone else. Or, at least, he had a chance to, because Phil had a clean slate with him.

He knew what he wanted to do. “Do you want to come to my art studio?” he asked.

Dan looked at him, confused, and shivered. “What?”

“It’s really close by. And you shouldn’t be out here in the rain.”

Dan shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I was on my way back to my room anyways.”

The image of Dan lying in bed and crying flashed back into Phil’s mind, and before he knew what he was doing he reached out and grabbed Dan’s hand. Dan looked down at their joined hands, wide-eyed, as rain slid off their skin. “I’m not going to force you to come with me. But I also don’t want to leave you alone out here in the rain.”

Dan continued to stare at their joined hands for a while, then at Phil. “Okay,” he said softly. Phil smiled and took back his hand, watching Dan reach up and wipe his eyes. Phil turned around and began walking back towards his art studio, and he could hear Dan shuffling behind him, even through the rain. As soon as they got inside, Phil turned back around to look at him in the light. He wore black ripped jeans, the skin under his rips now a bright red, along with the black sweatshirt he’d worn in class. All of his clothes were soaked, through, and his hair was plastered to his face, a few curls sticking up from his skin. Phil had an urge to reach up and sweep his hair back, but he held it in.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi,” Dan responded. Then, “I’m very wet.”

Phil laughed loudly as Dan blushed. “Yes, you are.” He looked down at himself. “And so am I. Let’s fix that.”

He led Dan upstairs to his art studio and, before he could think about what Dan was seeing, he grabbed the overnight bag he always kept here in case of an all-nighter, filled with a couple pairs of jeans and sweatshirts.

“Here,” he said, tossing a sweatshirt to Dan. “It’s not going to fit your style, but it will have to do.” Then he stood up, but kept his back to Dan. “I’m going to keep standing like this until you’ve told me you’ve finished changing.”

He thought that Dan might tease him for being so modest, but instead Dan just sniffed and began to shuffle around, assumedly removing his clothes.

“I’m done,” he said after a bit. Phil turned around and, despite Dan’s somber mood, couldn’t help laughing. The image of Dan in his bright yellow Adventure Time sweatshirt was just too much.

“You look  _ great _ ,” he said.

Dan smirked. “Yeah, laugh it up. There’s a reason I always wear black, you know. It matches my soul.”

Phil shrugged. “I think you look good in bright colors. You should wear them more often.”

“Thanks,” Dan replied, looking a little surprised. He began to take in their surroundings. Phil’s stomach seized up.

“This is your art studio,” Dan said eventually.

Phil stood beside him and looked at the results of his temper tantrum: the bookcase face down in the middle of the floor, the chair tipped over, the duvet spread to the side. “Yeah.”

“Where is your thesis?” Dan asked softly, as if he knew it was an awkward question, but didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s this. It’s…nothing.” Phil sighed and, not even having the energy to go pick up the chair, sat cross-legged on the floor. “I haven’t really started. Haven’t been able to.”

Dan sat next to him, still looking at the lack of sculpture, the pile of stuff. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry I lied about it,” Phil said. “I was embarrassed.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Dan scooted over so that he could face Phil. “I get it.”

“Get what?”

“Life is hard sometimes.”

Phil studied Dan’s blotchy face and decided to be brave. “Dan, why were you crying?”

Dan’s face pinched near his eyes, and for a moment Phil was afraid he was going to start crying again. “I don’t know. I’ve been struggling here. I’m homesick.”

“Me too. I’m not going to lie, I love when you speak in class because of your accent. It’s comforting.”

Dan smiled and batted at Phil’s knee. Phil’s clothes were still wet, so the touch was chilling. “Oh, you’re aiding in the fetishization of our British accents?”

“What can I say? I share the attraction to them.” Phil didn’t fully realize what he’d said until he said it, but he decided to continue being bold, and kept staring right into Dan’s eyes. Dan blushed. Phil wasn’t normally like this – he was normally pursued by his hookups, just as Dan had tried to do, not the other way around. or him to be pursuing Dan like this was new and perhaps treacherous territory. He didn’t know if it was good or bad that he was already getting attached to having Dan in his life.

They sat in silence for a moment, until the sadness returned to Dan’s eyes. “Freshman year has sucked, if I’m being honest. I spend a lot of time in my dorm room. I have a single, which I thought would be great at first, but now I realize it just makes it easier for me to isolate myself. So, I spend a lot of time in my room….” Dan hesitated and glanced at Phil before returning his eyes to the floor. “Crying, obviously.” He sniffed and lifted the neck of his sweatshirt to wipe his nose. “God, I’m pathetic.”

“No,” Phil said quickly. He sighed and moved to lay down on the floor, the late hour hitting him. “I think more people at this school feel like that than you think. I certainly do.”

Phil saw Dan move forward slightly, as if he was going to lay down next to Phil, but then he moved back again. Phil’s chest ached with how much he wanted Dan to come lay next to him, and maybe hug him. He was cold, and he imagined that in his clothes Dan was warm and probably smelled nice.

“Tell me about your thesis,” Dan said. “Why are you struggling to work on it?”

Phil expected his stomach to seize up in panic at being asked about it, but the embarrassment he normally felt was absent, and the words came easily. “Basically, I had a breakdown over winter break about my topic. I had this idea of what I wanted the project to be. It’s a joint sculpture and sociology thesis, so I wanted to make it about something about social performativity. I spent all of first semester thinking it was going to be about masculinity, but then I realized I didn’t really know what to say about that. I’m not very masculine.”

Dan giggled at that. “Me either.” He brought his hand up to his mouth as he laughed, and Phil noticed that the sleeve of his sweatshirt was pulled over Dan’s hand, like a little bear paw. The sight of that, plus in Dan in his sweatshirt in general, made his heart flip over.

“But I think I  _ act  _ masculine around my friends. Like, I’m so ashamed of who I really am that I pretend to be someone I’m not. I think I just realized that this year.” Phil sighed and began to rub his eyes – the florescent lights on the ceiling were starting to burn. “I’m just so stressed about this thesis, because I don’t want to fail. And I’m embarrassed because normally I’m so creative. Now, it’s just blank in there,” Phil said, tapping his head.

“Hey,” Dan said, moving to lie right next to Phil. He rotated on his side, facing Phil, his stomach touching Phil’s side. “You’re still a creative person. Even if you can’t create anything right now.”

“I guess,” Phil said. He didn’t realize he had started crying, but he must have, because Dan put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t cry too.” Phil reached a hand to his face and felt that his cheeks were wet. He was so exhausted, or stressed, or something, that his body had started crying without even getting his brain’s attention first.

Phil jerked his hand away when he felt  _ Dan _ ’s hand touch his hair. He looked to the side to see that Dan had reached forward and was gently stroking his fringe back. “Hey, I’m the one who’s supposed to comforting you here,” he joked, and Dan smiled. He brought his hand back and then laid down next to Phil again, literally snuggling into his side this time.

“Okay, back to you,” Phil said. “How was the show tonight?”

“Oh. Okay. I don’t know. I don’t really have any friends in it.”

“How was PJ?”

“He was good.” Then Dan scrunched up his nose. “I don’t know…something about his performance really bugs me.”

“He’s the wolf?”

“Yeah. And he performs it in drag. So he’s wearing a dress and these really high heels… And it’s really cool. But whenever he’s backstage he’s talking about how manly he is. Like how him being able to walk in three inch heels proves his manliness. It’s confusing.”

Phil hadn’t known that about PJ’s performance, but it didn’t surprise him. PJ himself wasn’t gay, but he liked to play along with the stereotypes of being not-straight. When Phil came out as bisexual, PJ offered to make out with him if he was ever desperate for a male hookup. He had clearly thought he was doing Phil a service by offering, but it had made Phil feel upset, as if he didn’t already struggle enough with knowing whether a guy was really interested in him or not. But he hadn’t told PJ any of that, of course.

“Yeah, he’s an interesting friend,” Phil sighed.

“Whenever you say friend…or whenever you talk about your friends…you don’t sound like you mean it,” Dan said slowly.

Phil didn’t know what to say to that. Dan was  _ right _ , and it was almost embarrassing that Dan had managed to articulate something that Phil had been struggling with for all of college. “You’re right,” he said. “They’re not great. I’m part of this friend group, but I’m only really personally friends with Emma and PJ. And Emma is okay. I don’t think she’s purposefully mean. But she doesn’t really do anything to counteract PJ, you know? She just goes along with everything he does. So she’s sort of mean by omission.”

“And PJ?”

“He got me friends at the beginning. When I was a freshman, I thought that was all I needed to be happy. I thought friends could save me. Now I realize that doesn’t do much, especially if they’re not great.” He paused, wanting to tell Dan about what had happened with PJ, but embarrassed about it. “PJ and I got into a fight tonight,” he said eventually. “Over the phone. I told him he was judgmental and mean. So I think our friendship is on the way out now. Which, whatever, is good I guess.” He laid his arm over his eyes and sighed heavily. “I need to learn to be more assertive.”

Dan started laughing hard at that, the bounce of his chest pushing Phil upwards. He sat up slightly and glared at him. “What?”

“We met each other because I thought you were giving me signs that you wanted to hook up, when really you weren’t being communicative at all and I was being way too assertive. I just think it’s funny.”

“I can’t believe that was only a few days ago.”

“Does that make you nervous?”

“I worry people are going to think that I abducted you. Or that you feel that way about me.”

“No, I don’t. If anything, I sort of threw myself at you.”

“I’m not going to lie, that did freak me out. But I really did want to be your friend. You’re better than everyone else I know.” Dan was staring at him sort of wide-eyed, looking unbearably cute, and Phil decided he needed to practice what he preached. “Um, in the spirit of being assertive, do you want to cuddle?”

Dan’s face immediately erupted into a smile. Phil was surprised when he then rolled onto his back and opened his arms out. “Oh,” Phil giggled, embarrassed that he had thought Dan would crawl onto his chest, and feeling strangely vulnerable about the idea of snuggling into Dan’s.

“Are you okay with lying on my chest?” Dan asked, sensing Phil’s hesitation.

“Yeah, that’s okay.” Phil shifted to the side, lifted himself up, and then lowered himself so that his head was cradled right under and to the left of Dan’s neck. He brought his hands out, hovering them over Dan’s shoulders for a moment, before deciding that was too much and letting them drop to Dan’s sides.

“This is nice. I really needed this.”

“Me too.”

Dan sighed. “Sometimes I just want to get away. It’s hard feeling stuck on campus.”

Phil snuggled his forehead into the crook of Dan’s neck. “Yeah.”

They laid there, dozing in and out of sleep, listening to the rain splashing off the roof, until sunrise.


	3. Wednesday

It was Phil who woke up first. His position on top of Dan’s chest was less comfortable and more unstable, so when Dan rolled over to the right Phil found himself sliding onto the cold tile ground. The shock of the cold after spending hours enveloped in the heat of Dan’s chest caused him to jolt awake. It took him several blinks to figure out where he was. But his blurry gaze was centered on Dan’s slowly rising and falling chest, and once his eyes focused, the night came rushing back. He rolled over once more so that he could reach his phone, which had been squished into the back pocket of his jeans. Even though there was light coming through the windows, the bright light of the screen and the announcement that it was 6:14 AM still hurt his eyes.

Phil groaned quietly and rubbed his eyes. He’d slept well on top of Dan – surprisingly well, actually. But he was cold and his joints felt stiff. And perhaps more pressing than that, he now felt a small emotional hangover. What was he supposed to do after spending a night basically crying and cuddling with Dan? How could he bounce back from something so vulnerable? This was a scenario he’d never encountered before, and strangely he almost wished this was a post-one night stand morning. He knew how to handle those a lot better. He was extremely awkward, sure, if the other person woke up when he did. He would quickly get dressed and say something about how he had fun. He liked that reasoning, because it focused on the  _ fun  _ of sex as opposed to any sort of pleasure, which is where things could get touchy. Then he would let himself out of their room – he’d never brought someone to his room before. And if the other person didn’t wake up when he did, he never felt guilty about leaving because he wasn’t invested in what they thought of him or seeing them again.

But he cared about Dan. He didn’t want to just leave him. Plus, it would be even more awkward if he did leave because Dan was in _his_ art studio. He laid back against the cold floor and took a deep breath, thinking over everything he needed to do today: some readings for his sociology class, going to his sociology class, where he would see Dan, and talking to PJ? Or Emma? He wasn’t really sure what issue to address first. His life felt a bit like it had gotten into a car crash in a car that wasn’t his. “Nothing like fucking up everything during senior spring,” he muttered to himself.

“What?” Dan muttered, his voice croaky. Phil jumped at the sudden noise, and then turned his head to see Dan staring back at him. He looked beautiful: hair curling up from around his forehead, the sunlight making the tips of his hair shine, his eyes shiny from crying and sleep, his lips a little flushed, the yellow of Phil’s sweatshirt making his skin look rosy. It made Phil’s heart flutter.

“You should wear more colors,” Phil said, his voice similarly croaky. He was still looking at Dan, but found his eyelids half shutting as he stretched his neck back, sleep still looming over him.

“Thanks,” Dan whispered.

“It’s almost 6:30AM.”

“Oh.”

“I need to do the readings for today’s class.”

Dan didn’t respond right away, but instead reached his hand out across the cold floor to where Phil’s was lying. He placed his hand on top of Phil’s, not exactly holding it, but his fingers falling slightly into the divot between Phil’s fingers and palm. Phil tried not to let Dan see that he was sucking his breath it. Dan had always been brave, stupidly braver than Phil. Phil didn’t know how so much bravery was inside his heart. Phil loved receiving it, but craved it for himself as well.

Eventually, after what could have been either a few seconds or an hour, Dan pulled his hand away and said, “Okay. I can get my stuff together.”

Not certain he had the energy to pull himself up yet, Phil watched from the floor as Dan stood and walked towards where he’d dropped his backpack last night. He picked up his previously wet clothes, and began to pull Phil’s sweatshirt off, for a moment revealing a band of skin.

“Keep the sweatshirt,” Phil said, both wanting him to have it and fearing how he’d feel about seeing Dan shirtless.

Dan looked back at him and smiled, his lips parting to show his teeth and his eyes scrunching together. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and said, “Thanks.”

Phil watched blearily as Dan packed up the rest of his stuff and left. He closed his eyes and listened as Dan walked down the staircase, each of his footsteps reverberating through the building.

Phil eventually managed to pull himself up off the floor and actually wake up. He grabbed his phone again, having a faint memory that he’d received some texts in the night. There were four of them, all from Emma:

_ Ok so PJ texted me saying ur being an ass. are u being an ass? _

_ upon reflection i realize its probably PJ who’s being the ass. But still could you two pretty boys just make up? It seems kinda late in the year to have a dramatic break up _

_ i know PJ can be annoying as hell but we all have to deal with his shit, not just you. that’s what we signed up for. _

_ but also u do u. i also just want you to be happy…i’m here if you want to talk _

Reading the texts made Phil angry all over again. Emma wanted him to suck it up and make up with PJ but also wanted him to be happy? It wasn’t a huge surprise that this was her response, but it was also disappointing. Emma still saw him as the Phil she’d known for the past three and a half years, the punk partier Phil who got off on having lots of friends. She didn’t really know anything else about him. She certainly didn’t know what would make him happy.

He sat up and haphazardly let his phone tumble to the floor from his hand. He cared but didn’t really care; if it cracked, he’d be free from all of those ties. He crawled over to his backpack and pulled out his sociology readings. He wanted to at least  _ try  _ to read them, but now a dozen imaginary scenarios in which he confronted Emma or PJ were swirling in his head.

Phil was so angry, and he wasn’t used to feeling angry. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. His family hadn’t really been an angry family. They’d had their conflicts, sure, and Phil and Martyn always fought, but the solutions seemed to come naturally. Phil wasn’t sure how to seek anything out. When his uncle gave him the cordless hammer drill, he didn’t counter his jokes that it would help Phil become more masculine. When his uncle spent hours teaching him how to use it, he never once piped up. He would’ve wanted to be polite no matter what, but in the end his silence probably gave his uncle the idea that he loved the drill and would definitely use it. Phil panicked the moment he received that gift, but then he did nothing to help himself.

Phil reached for his phone was and flipped it over the check the time: 7:25 AM. He had about two hours to try to get through this reading. He flipped open to the first page and tried to focus on the words in front of him: normative…media…capitalization…. The reading was about the capitalization of user-made content on sites like YouTube, Phil could tell that much. But he was struggling to concentrate as he switched out his anger-infused daydreams about his friends with thoughts of Dan.

Dan, who he had brought into his art studio last night. Dan, who had seen his lack of a thesis. Dan, who hadn’t teased him about it. Even though Dan seemed like he had his own messes in his life, his honesty about them had made Phil feel less messy. He’d felt free of the weight of his mess, as if there was a chance he could get better, as if there was still a chance he could finish his thesis.

Dan, whom Phil had spent the night sleeping on top of. It had been so innocent, just two boys craving the comfort of a good cuddle. But it had made Phil feel safe, and opened up his mind to other, less innocent thoughts about Dan.

Underneath Phil’s sweatshirt, did Dan look like the sculpture of David? Smooth and defined with real-not-marble skin? Sure, he probably wasn’t as ripped as Michelangelo had imagined David, but that didn’t mean he was any less sexy or beautiful. When Dan had placed his hand on Phil’s earlier, his fingers had felt so soft and comforting, and now Phil was wondering what the rest of his skin felt like. And  at the same time, strangely, he just wanted to be around him again. Dan had been gone for barely an hour, and Phil already missed him. He was trying to cram facts about the internet into his head, when really he just wanted to catch up on everything he needed to know about Dan.

Phil slammed his book shut. He wasn’t going to be able to finish this reading in time – he felt too liberated. He knew what he wanted to do.

\- - -

Phil didn’t wonder if he was crazy until he started walking to class. After realizing he wasn’t going to be able to finish the reading he decided to dart home to take a shower. He did so reluctantly, as that meant washing the smell of Dan off him, but he was cold and tired and wanted to be warm and awake for what he was about to do.

On the walk to class he felt…wholeheartedly different than he had on Monday. What had previously been a cold hard drudge up a hill suddenly felt liberating, like he knew he could beat it, and he  _ knew  _ this was all because he was walking towards Dan. Seventy two hours ago he hadn’t even known him, and now he couldn’t get him out of his head, and he worried that was wrong.

But Phil had never gone easy on himself, ever. He’d countered every hook up or good night he’d ever had with a thought of ‘was that wrong?’ or ‘was I too enthusiastic?’ or ‘did I really enjoy that or am I just telling myself I did?’ And so he decided to go easy on himself with this one and just follow his heart.

And his heart was beating furiously as he walked up the hill towards Dan. He didn’t even falter when he walked into the building to see Emma sitting in her usual place on the bench by the classroom.

“Hey,” she said when she saw him approach. She wasn’t looking at him like anything was different. She was sitting with her arms crossed over her sweater, her red hair wrapped in a tight bun on the top of her head.

Phil stopped when he was standing in front of her. “Hey,” he said hesitantly.

“How was your night?”

Phil couldn’t help it, he rolled his eyes at that. “You  _ know  _ how my night was.”

Emma looked confused for a moment, and then nodded. “Ah, right. The PJ drama.”

“Don’t tell me you’d forgotten.”

Emma looked at him thoughtfully. “No. I was just sort of wishing you had.” In his excitement he had arrived five minutes early, so now he had nothing to do but to sit on his bench, in silence, with Emma. But then Emma started talking again. “Look, I got nervous, because I don’t want to lose all my friends,” she said. “Maybe you’re okay with losing them, but I’m not. And you’re a big part of that group. If you leave, I worry that people will just start leaving.”

“You guys would get along just fine without me. Plus, I’m not leaving. I’m just trying to figure myself out. We’re graduating soon, Emma. I don’t want to leave feeling like this.” Emma snapped her head away from Phil at that, staring straight ahead and biting her lip. Phil sighed, “Just do what you want, Emma. Hang out with who you want to hang out with. Have sex with whoever you want to have sex with.”

“You say that like you think that’s what will make me happy, when I thought it was what was making  _ you  _ happy, and now three years later I’m finding out it’s not,” Emma said. She still wasn’t looking at Phil, and all of a sudden he worried she was going to start crying. He didn’t know if he could handle that; he might start crying as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“It’s not your fault,” Emma said quickly. “PJ is a dick, and we all put up with his shit, and it’s not your fault that you’re the first one to get tired of it.” She sucked in a deep breath and turned to face him again. “I guess I thought we were really close, and now it’s scary to think I don’t understand what’s going on inside your head.”

“If it helps, I don’t think I do either,” Phil said, tapping Emma in the side with his elbow. He was trying to make a joke, trying to return to the happiness he was feeling before. He didn’t want to feel bad about Emma, but also understood the pain of realizing you might not be happy in your life. He’d felt it a lot recently. But still, this was a really serious conversation for 10 AM. “We can always stay friends if you want us to stay friends, Emma.  _ You  _ can make that happen. We don’t need PJ, or anyone else.”

Emma nodded to that, and for a split second she looked scared, or maybe sad. But then her face returned to its resting position, and just like that Emma was back: stoic, a little careless, with a fuck-you-and-fuck-the-world attitude. “So I guess you’re going to date this boy,” she said with a sniff. “Like date him, date him.”

Phil smiled. “Yeah. I mean, I want to.”  

“Cool. I give you my blessing. And I can try to keep PJ off your back for you.”

“Well, I’m not going to be going to Into the Woods tonight. Or tomorrow. Or Friday. So some damage control is going to have to be done.”

Emma muttered, “Yikes,” and then walked away from him into the classroom like she hadn’t been waiting for him, like the conversation hadn’t even happened. Phil really couldn’t figure her out. But then, maybe that was the whole point – they’d known each other for years but didn’t know how to read each other.

Phil sat in same seat he’d sat in last class – away from Emma, which he felt bad about now, but closer to where Dan normally sat. He and Emma were the first two to enter the class, as per usual, and so he had to sit and wait in anticipation.

Finally, two minutes before class started, Dan walked in: tall, wearing grey jeans and a black sweater, his hair straightened and draped across his forehead. Phil’s eyes were immediately drawn to the grey jeans – he had never seen such a light color on Dan’s legs before, and it was fascinating. Dan smiled at him, big and bright, and Phil smiled back. He followed Dan with his eyes as he walked towards his seat, and caught sight of Emma rolling hers. Phil stuck his tongue out in response.

Class was difficult to sit through. Like with the readings, Phil couldn’t focus. He kept looking at Dan. And Dan kept looking back at him. It was hard to not smile all the time. Maybe he was consistently smiling, he couldn’t really tell. The professor called on him at one point to explain why the capitalization of user-made content might be a problem, and Phil stumbled through an answer without really hearing what he was saying. His mind was somewhere else.

When class finally ended, Phil stood up to approach Dan. It was a repeat of Monday, only now they already knew each other’s names, and what it sounded like when they cried, and what they looked like when soaking wet. Even though Phil hadn’t had sex with him, hadn’t even kissed him, he felt electric shock lines traveling from Dan’s heart to his.

“Hey,” Phil said once he was stood in front of him.

Dan smiled even wider. “Hi.”

Phil took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact that Emma was staring at him from the door. “So, do you want to go out on a date with me?” Dan blushed and bit his lip, and Phil’s heart rate spiked. “I mean,” he began, leaning forward and lowering his voice to a whisper. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, I just thought you might be interested.”

“Of course I am,” Dan said, playfully hitting him on the arm. “It’s just…. I’ve never…gone on a date with a guy before.”

“Oh.” Phil leaned back and crossed his arms. During their night at the art studio he had already forgotten that Dan was a freshman, and experiencing everything for the first time. Phil himself might be out, but he didn’t want to pressure Dan. He smiled gently. “You might find it preferable to trying to kiss them behind a tree.”

Dan laughed, “Shut up,” and brushed his hand against Phil’s arm again, which Phil took as a good sign.

“So, is that a yes?”

“Yes. I’d love to go on a date with you.”

Phil’s heart did flips. He looked back and saw Emma still staring at him, but smiling now. She gave him a thumbs up before leaving the room. He waved to her. He was okay with her knowing, he supposed.

“So, what are we going to do on our date?” Dan asked as they started to walk out of the classroom.

Phil grinned. “You want to get away from here, right?”


	4. Thursday

Phil rented a car. It was $85 for a day, more money than he wanted to spend on transportation, but he was so ready to get off campus that he allowed himself this reckless spending. Neither of them had Friday classes, so they decided to go out Thursday night. Phil spent all of Thursday morning and afternoon planning – he wanted this to be the most revitalizing night he or Dan had ever experienced. Their school was near the coast, so he figured they could drive towards the coast and then just drive upwards to see what they could find. He didn’t want to plan anything more specific. It wasn’t about the destination, as cheesy as that sounded, it was about them being away and together.   
  
Phil was nervous, partly because he was going to be spending so much time in close quarters with Dan, partly because he wasn’t sure if he remembered how to drive on the correct side of the road. When he arrived as a freshman his mom made him apply to get an international driver’s permit so he wouldn’t feel trapped. But he’d barely used it – often when he felt restless it still seemed like too much work to go online and book a car. But now he felt boundless amounts of energy. His schoolwork, his unfinished thesis, his pending graduation – they all seemed worlds away.    
  
He picked up the car from a rental place within walking distance from campus at 5PM. He thought about smoking a cigarette on the walk there, but then scrapped that idea because he didn’t have any gum and didn’t want to be self-conscious about how his mouth smelled. He thought about what Dan said – that he’d never gone on a date with a boy before – and realized that technically he hadn’t either. He’d never dated, like committed-relationship dated a boy before. He’d had many great hookups and experiences at parties that he wouldn’t take back, but he suddenly felt even a little more nervous, because he was inexperienced at this too.    
  
After getting the care set up,Phil was supposed to pick Dan up at his dorm. He shakily pulled out of the parking lot and followed the directions chirping away on his phone. A left, go straight, another left, turn right. Would Dan be excited to see him? Would Dan be visibly nervous? Would Dan think this date idea was boring, or cute?    
  
Dan was waiting by the curb when Phil pulled up to the front of his dorm, which was adorable. Phil slowed to a stop and Dan jumped in, immediately filling the car with warmth. “Hi,” he said, and he smiled, and just then Phil noticed that he had the cutest little cheek dimples. Not being able to help himself he blurted, “Hi. I just noticed how cute your cheeks are.”   
  
Dan looked confused for a moment and brought his hand to his cheek. “Oh, my dimples?” he said eventually. “I used to hate them.”   
  
“I love them,” Phil said, and Dan smiled again.   
  
It was a bit awkward after that, with Phil unable to believe he had blurted that out. He e was becoming a version of himself that he didn’t recognize – but he also really liked it.   
  
“Where are we going?” Dan said once Phil had pulled away from the curb and turned the first corner.    
  
“The plan right now is to just drive. You okay with that?”   
  
“Yeah,” Dan said. Phil heard what sounded like Dan fiddling with a plastic bag, and when they got to a stop light he turned his head to look. Dan was holding a CD in his hand.   
  
“What’s that?”   
  
Dan’s head snapped towards Phil and he blushed again. “Oh, well you know how you showed me your thesis? I thought that was really brave of you. I wanted to return the favor, so I recorded me playing some songs on the piano and burned a CD.” Phil was looking at the road again, but he could hear the embarrassment in Dan’s voice, and he appreciated that Dan didn’t have a straight-on view of the happy look spreading across his own. “I thought we could listen to it for some of the drive, if you wanted?”   
  
“Yeah, that sounds amazing!”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
Dan took the CD out of its case and was about to slide it into the CD player when Phil said, “Wait, first tell me why you like to play piano. Like, what does it mean to you?”   
  
Dan leaned back in his seat. He spoke slowly. “Well, I decided that I wanted to play piano when I was young. I even saved up my own money and everything to pay for lessons. But I had this horrible woman as a teacher, so I quit. Later in high school, when I was trying to figure out who I was, I really regretted that. So, I started teaching myself. I’m not great at reading music, but I can figure stuff out by ear.”   
  
“Wow.”   
  
“I’m really not that good at it, to be honest, so please don’t laugh. But it makes me happy. And I like still doing it now because it reminds me that piano is something I’ve always wanted to play. It reminds me that I can do things, be independent.”   
  
Phil wished he could reach over and touch Dan’s hand, instead of having to hold the steering wheel. “Of course. I would never laugh at you, Dan. I promise.”   
  
“Ok. Well, here goes nothing.” Dan slid the CD in, and the first track started playing. It was Dan playing a song that Phil recognized. The song started out slow and plunky, and then transitioned into a faster more complicated melody.    
  
“I recognize this,” Phil said.   
  
“It’s ‘The Entertainer.’ It’s a common Ragtime-era piano song that people learn.”   
  
Phil listened closely – Even at his fastest, Dan played at a moderate tempo. And he did mess up a few of the fastest notes. But other than that, he thought Dan sounded pretty good. And he felt like he could hear how happy Dan was when playing. That was exactly what Phil wanted to do with his sculptures – to drench his materials with his feelings so that when someone took one look at his sculpture they could understand him.    
  
As if he was reading his mind, Dan said, “Tell me about sculpting. To be honest, I have a really hard time getting what it’s like to make a sculpture.”   
  
“It’s about understanding that sometimes the medium is the message,” Phil explained.    
  
“What does that mean?”   
  
“Oh, I forgot you aren’t actually a sociology major yet. ‘The medium is the message’ is a phrase that was coined by this philosopher guy….I can’t remember his name.” That made Dan laugh. “It basically means that the medium is always going to inform how a message is perceived, so it’s important to work with the medium to create your message. So with sculpturing, the challenge is to think about how individual items and pieces can come together to create meaning. The result could be a clearly cohesive meaning, like a sculpture of a person, or a piece-wise meaning, which is more like a sculpture collage. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m actually not very artistic and more creative, so that’s where my strengths lie.”   
  
Even while looking forwards, Phil could tell that Dan was watching him intensely as he talked, nodding his head every now and then. “Wow.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
The conversation dappled off. It was difficult, because Phil felt he had to pay even more attention to the road than normal to remember what side he was driving on. He even explained this to Dan, but he still worried that Dan was bored with this date. The first track on the CD finished and transitioned into a piece that sounded much more pop-y.   
  
“Are you out to your parents?” Dan said suddenly, and Phil’s grip on the steering wheel temporarily slacked.   
  
“Yeah,” he said slowly, wanting to gauge Dan’s level of comfort with this conversation. “I originally told them over Skype, actually. Which was a bit awkward, but they were really supportive.”   
  
“What was it like telling them?”   
  
“Weird. Because all I could say was that I liked boys, but I feared that it sounded dramatic, like when people come out in the movies. I didn’t really want it to be this big deal, this big coming out. I feel like here you can kind of slink out of the closet instead of having to make some big splash.”   
  
Dan laughed. “Slink out of the closet. I like that. Maybe that’s what I’ll try to do.”   
  
Phil’s hands almost turned numb. He felt the weight of this conversation, delicate yet heavy. But Dan was approaching it with a light-heartedness and grace that he deeply admired. He wanted to try to balance both sides. He hated that he was driving during this and couldn’t look Dan straight in the eyes or touch him.   
  
Phil risked it – he brought his hand out and placed it on top of Dan’s. He wasn’t brave enough to say the words yet, but hoped he would be soon.

\- - -   


After that, they drove in a much more comfortable silence for thirty minutes. The CD of Dan’s piano music played for four full songs before restarting with “The Entertainer” again. At that point Dan pressed eject and removed the CD from the slot.

“We could listen to it again,” Phil said. “It was nice mood music. A nice background for all of these hills.” The weather in January was unfortunately sucky here, and yesterday’s freezing rain had replaced any picturesque snow with icy brown slush. But Phil still appreciated that the view looked  _ different _ . His eyes had tired of the same old views of his room, his classrooms, the sidewalk as he walked up the hill.

“Sure. I mean, if you want?” Dan asked. Phil could see out of the corner of his eye that Dan was nervously looking at him for confirmation that he’d really meant it, so he nodded. Dan popped the CD back in. For another playthrough, Dan and Phil appreciated the slushy views, and the fact that with every minute they were becoming freer from the versions of themselves that lived on campus.

They had just gone around a large curve on a country road when Dan spoke again, pointing at something ahead of them. “Hey, look over there. Is that a carnival?”

Phil looked at where Dan was pointing. Over a short row of trees coming up on their left he could see the tops of several blow-up bounce houses and mazes. There was also a small ferris wheel situated near the back. Phil could see an entrance to a parking lot ahead of them, where there appeared to be many teenagers swarmed around a ticket booth. “It looks like a high school winter carnival,” Phil said.

Dan shivered. “Seems a bit cold for one.”

Phil checked to make sure there were no cars behind them, and slowed down substantially. “We should go,” he said.

Dan looked at him. “Really?”

“C’mon, don’t you think I can pass for high school?” Phil asked, primping his hair with one hand.

Dan laughed, and without waiting for a sure answer Phil pulled into the parking lot.

“If you make your fringe look a little more emo, then maybe,” Dan said as they slowed to a stop in a parking spot. “But aren’t we going to need student IDs to get in or something?”

Phil glanced at the kids around the ticket booth. “It looks like they’re just paying with money. And I’ve got some cash on me.” Now that they were parked and the car was off, Phil squished his legs to the right so that he could turn to completely face Dan, wanting to look him in the eyes. “Let’s go,” he said, and reached out to touch Dan’s hand. He just rested his fingers on top of Dan’s, just as Dan had on Tuesday.

Dan looked at their hands and smiled. “Okay,” he said softly, and Phil thought he might melt away.

They got out of the car and walked very close to each other, shoulders bumping the whole time, body warmth spreading between their sides. When they got to the admissions booth, the man behind it barely looked at them before saying, “It’s two dollars per person.”

Phil gave Dan a shrug and then handed the man a five, who then gave him back change.

“That was easy,” Dan whispered into Phil’s ear as they walked away and Phil felt woozy. Dan’s voice was low and scratchy and his breath was hot. Phil didn’t know how it was possible for someone to  _ smell  _ like warmth, but Dan literally did, and it made him want to lean all the way into him. “I know,” he managed to whisper back.

They entered the carnival and looked around. It was crowded enough that they blended in well, which Phil liked. There were lots of high school kids, most of them standing in lines at the different stands and rides. Besides the bouncy houses and mazes that Phil had seen from the road, there were many food stands, as well as typical carnival games like trying to knock over a bottle or get a hoop on a peg.

“Okay, there are a lot of lines and I’m cold,” Dan said after they had made a loop of the carnival ground. Phil glanced at Dan, who was shivering, and then glanced around. There weren’t many people directly around them, and they were inconspicuous. He just wanted to touch Dan, but he didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any places with four walls except for the bounce house.”

“How about there?” Dan asked.

Phil followed his gaze to a little wooden shack. It was the size of most of the booths, except this one was walled off in the shape of a porta-potty. The sign on the front of the wooden door read ‘Fortune Telling.’ “Ooo, a fortune telling booth!” Phil said excitedly. “You know, my grandma was psychic.”

“Was she?”

“Yes. And I have always been convinced that I inherited some of her skills. Let’s go find out!” In a burst of bravery, Phil grabbed Dan’s hand and pulled him towards the booth.

Inside was a middle-aged woman, probably a mom of one of the high school kids, sitting on a bench. There was one chair across from her, and not much standing room. “Hello,” she said. “Are you here to have your palms read? It’s five dollars per person.”

Dan turned to Phil and shrugged, signifying that he didn’t know what that was either. “Sure!” Phil said eventually, and handed the woman a ten.

Dan enthusiastically sat down on the chair. Phil watched as the woman clasped Dan’s hand and brought it towards her chest. Then she loosened her grip and unfolded Dan’s palm with a brush of her hand. “I am going to look at see which line sticks out to me the most.”

“Okay,” Dan said, and he leaned over to watch as the woman cupped his palm and traced the various lines on Dan’s skin. Phil hadn’t paid attention to Dan’s hands before, but now he was fascinated. They were large and smooth, his skin looking like it had been freshly created the day before. His fingers were long and his nails cut short. He had two very distinct lines that ran horizontally across his palm, while the rest were more indistinct. The woman traced the lower one of those lines with her fingers.

“Dan, you are driven by your passions, however misguided they may be,” she said. “You are unsure of yourself, but paradoxically you also contain much bravery.” She traced the line again multiple times, up and down, and then lifted Dan’s palm so that it was vertical. “I am looking at your head line.”

“What is a head line?” Dan asked.

“The head line reveals things about your mind. It details the state of your intelligence and wisdom. And your head line is long and straight. It reveals that while you are both driven and sometimes foolish, you overall need to be less hard on yourself.”

“Does that mean something about what he’s going to do in the future?” Phil interjected.

The woman gave him an annoyed glare, and Phil thought that maybe he wasn’t supposed to speak during another person’s palm reading. “Palm reading isn’t really about telling your future but seeing into your heart.”

“Oh,” Phil said.

“But one could say understanding yourself is the best way to understanding your future.”

That made Phil shiver – he suddenly wasn’t so sure he wanted this woman to read his palms. He really believed in this stuff, see. His granny used to tell him stories about how she could read tarot cards or predict the future. But he liked how the future predictions would always sound large and sweeping – like  _ you will meet someone soon who will be very important to your life  _ or  _ your anxieties will soon be resolved –  _ statements that had wiggle room. He wasn’t so sure he wanted this woman to announce  _ who he was  _ and what his problems were, because even he wasn’t sure. So how could someone else be?

While Phil was frozen in this train of thought Dan must have finished up, because Phil eventually realized he was tugging on his jacket.

“Your turn, Phil.”

Phil nodded, and he and Dan struggled to switch places in the small space. Phil took deep breaths as he sat down, trying to hide his sudden inner panic.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly to the woman. She smiled at him, though, and gently took his hand like she had Dan’s.

“You feel very tense,” she said, and began to shake out his arm. “Relax your muscles.”

“Ah – uh, ok,” Phil squealed, shocked by the sudden movement. Once the woman had finished turning his arm into a noodle, she gently cupped his hand like she had Dan’s. Phil liked the feeling of her touch, actually. It was reassuring in the way that a stranger’s touch could sometimes be grounding in a crowd. It was human contact without any of the weight of knowing someone and putting meaning into the touch. Phil watched nervously as she studied his hand, her face wrinkled with concentration.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m looking at your heartline.”

“What is a heartline?”

“It represents love and attraction. Mostly your history with it.” She traced from the edge of Phil’s palm up towards his middle finger. “You have a short heartline. It could be straight or curved, it’s a little hard to tell.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are in between two states. You crave freedom, but you are struggling to express yourself. But you’re also able to open up with individual people, if you really try.”

“Oh,” Phil said. He kept telling himself it was possible that this was all mumbo jumbo, but his willingness to believe was too strong. And so the woman’s words hit close to home, making his chest ache. Really, maybe it was just that Phil had struggled to express himself all along. He had left for college wanting to be more free, and he became free, at least physically. Parties and kissing boys and waving to people on the sidewalk and sex – it was all freeing, Phil literally moving his body more, breaking out of the shell of a quiet guy from Rossendale. But it had more been a performance than anything else, a hope that acting braver on the outside would make it true. It had split him in half and pushed him even more inside himself.

The woman was continuing to say something about his heartline, but Phil wasn’t listening. He both desperately wanted to see Dan’s reaction to this and not see it. He felt extremely vulnerable in this moment, having his palm read to Dan. But he also realized that Dan’s foolish bravery had made him feel cracked open since he met him.

“Well, thanks,” Phil said shakily, not even sure if he was cutting her off or not. “This was very interesting, but we’ve got to go now.” Phil grabbed Dan by the shoulders and pushed him out of the booth first, catapulting them both back out into the cold. Dan stumbled forwards and then turned around and clasped Phil’s elbow.

“Are you okay? You started to look really pale in there.”

“I’m going to graduate soon, you know. In a couple months,” Phil said. He wasn’t sure he why he was saying it, but something was bubbling up from within him, something big and panicky.

Dan looked sad before taking on what Phil recognized as a neutral face. “Yes, I know that.”

“I am going to be graduating in a few months and my life is, like, such a fucking mess.”

Dan strengthened his grip on Phil’s elbow and tried to pull him in, but Phil backed up, feeling a little claustrophobic from the crowds of teenagers. “I don’t think it’s that much of a mess,” Dan said gently.

“I don’t have anything figured out. I don’t have  _ myself  _ figured out, never mind my future.”

“You have some things figured out. You are so confident in your sexuality. You have hooked up with boys without making a fool of yourself. I would love to be like that, instead of a tall awkward boy who still looks prepubescent.”

Phil would’ve laughed at that if he felt less stressed – Dan did still look young for his age. But Phil had honestly still looked that young at 18 as well. “Dan, you’re going to get more confident in your sexuality over time. You just got to college. When I had just arrived I was still insecure.”

Dan blew out a breath, billowing his mouth, and Phil watched as it turned into a cloud of fog in the cold air. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like everyone else has it figured out, especially guys. And I know that probably no one has it figured out, it just looks like they do because they pretend on the outside. But it makes me feel bad about myself.”

“I don’t want you to try to compare yourself to me, Dan. Because I’ve got all my own problems. I spent most of college just going through the motions and thinking I was happy. When I realized I wasn’t, I dropped everything else, my old friends, shitty as they are, my school work, my life, and zeroed in on you.”

Dan looked confused. “What?”

“I’m saying that you didn’t just throw yourself at me. I also threw myself at you. The only difference is that I threw myself at you emotionally, because I sensed that there might be more than just a hookup between us. And I think I was right?”

Phil stared into Dan’s eyes eagerly. His biggest fear was that his enthusiasm about them seemed weird to Dan, since they had only met just this week. But Dan was smiling back at him. “I think you are right,” he said, but then his face fell slightly. “And that scares you?”

“Yeah. Because it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have anything figured out, and I’m graduating.”

Dan laced his fingers all the way through Phil’s again. Phil watched as Dan’s left hand met his own and his fingers disappeared between his knuckles. Once they were joined, Dan led Phil forward and sat them down at a nearby picnic table.

“Is this all because of what the fortune teller said?”

“Yeah. She was right. I am caught between two states. I feel like I could say anything to you, which is great, but I still need to be able to express myself to other people. To PJ, to Emma, to my parents. In my thesis.”

“Start with your thesis then. I think that you can do what you originally wanted to do, and you’re just overthinking it. You can make something about masculinity and have it be about your feelings and fears. That doesn’t make it femininity. There isn’t just a binary.” He grinned. “I may be a freshman, but I’ve taken enough sociology to know that.”

That successfully made Phil laugh for the first time since the palm reading. He rocked his head back as he laughed, enjoying the feel of the stretch in his neck. He always held too much tension in his body. When he rocked forward again, Dan took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Phil’s back. Phil turned his head to look at him, and their faces were extremely close. Phil stayed there, in that exact position, wrapped up in Dan’s arms, and imagined what it would be like to kiss him. Even though it was cold out and they were both shivering, Dan’s lips were probably still warm. Dan’s skin felt soft, he knew that from the night they’d cuddled, and he could probably melt right into Dan’s body, not have to worry about supporting himself.

Phil was about to do it, about to lean forward, when Dan turned his head back towards the park. Phil almost hissed with frustration. “Hey, you’re from near Manchester, right?” Dan asked. Phil nodded, and Dan’s eyes lit up. “Have you ever been on the Manchester Eye?”

Phil leaned his head on Dan’s shoulder, frustrated they weren’t kissing. “Yeah. It’s fun. When you get to the top you can see, like, the whole city. Why?”

“Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to see very much from the top of this, but I think we should go. Pretend we’re home in the UK. Pretend we’re in Manchester.”

Phil turned his head to see that Dan was pointing at the ferris wheel. It was miniature, really, but still fully functional. The seats were just wide enough to fit two people, but at their size they would probably still be pressed up against each other. And that sounded very nice, actually. Phil smiled. “Okay, let’s go!” he said, pulled Dan forward with their still intertwined hands.

The carnival had been going on long enough now that the lines were no longer quite as long. They only had to wait for three other groups of people to go before them. When they got to the front, Phil handed the man who was running the wheel a five dollar bill. Once the barrier was lifted up, Dan and Phil squished into the seat. The barrier was lowered back down onto their laps, and then they were off, the chair moving backwards and then up.

“Are you afraid of heights?” Phil asked as they started moving vertically.

“Not really,” Dan said. “Definitely not this height.”

When they got to the top, Phil looked down, and it was true that they were barely that high at all. “I must admit I still get nervous when they stop us at the very top,” Phil said. “I don’t like when the chair rocks back and forth and you feel like you could tip over.”

Phil knew he’d made a mistake sharing that as soon as he met Dan’s eyes. “Oh, you mean like  _ this _ ?” Dan pushed his body forward and then rocked all the way back, causing their chair to lean back like a recliner.

“No,” Phil squealed, laughing as the chair rocked all the way forward and he felt his body push against the barrier. He grabbed onto Dan, one hand on either one of his shoulders, and leaned his body into his.

“Now you’re going to push us to the side,” Dan laughed, and Phil leaned into him even more and whispered, “Don’t care.”

They stayed frozen in that position as their chair started moving again, Dan’s back arched backwards and Phil leaning into him, his hands squished into the space by Dan’s hips. They stared at each other, even as they chair went past the man running the machine. It was a challenge, a dance, a standoff. As if both of their eyes were asking,  _ Is this the moment _ ?

“I really hope you like me as much as I like you,” Phil whispered. “Otherwise this would be awkward.”

Dan laughed. “Are you crazy? I practically  _ threw  _ myself at you, remember?”

“Yeah, but we got over that.”

Dan pushed his body forward, bringing them both back up to a straight sitting position, their torsos twisted inwards so they could still lean into each other. “Phil, I’m  _ cold _ ,” Dan said with a pout, and Phil couldn’t resist that. He leaned in and gently pressed his lips to Dan’s pout. Dan parted his lips more and wrapped his arms all the way around Phil’s back. They stayed that way for a whole loop of the ferris wheel, happy, warm, and kissing.

\- - -

Sitting in Phil’s art studio was his thesis. When he turned it in in mid-April, it was this: a tiny ferris wheel, about four feet tall, built out of wire and cloth; a three-dimensional plushie heart that Dan gave him for his birthday, suspended with a piece of clear string; tiny little action figurines, collected from McDonalds, populating the chairs of the ferris wheel; and pieces of paper that detailed how to do palm readings scattered around the ferris wheel scene.

Phil called his thesis “Rotations of the Heart.” He put it together over the month of February, often working late into the night as Dan sat on the floor of his art studio and played on his portable keyboard. Emma came by to visit him sometimes when he was working late on his thesis, and so did Mel. PJ drifted out of his life just as he had drifted in – suddenly and inconspicuously. And as Dan solidified his spot in Phil’s friend group, Phil wondered more and more why PJ had ever been there in the first place. It was possible there had been an old part of himself that Phil had been trying to hold onto, a part that was more wild and free. Phil still had that split within him – wild and free with Dan but more reserved with everyone else – but he was learning to love it.

He and Dan officially labeled themselves as in a relationship on his birthday, in late January, and when Dan gave Phil the plushie heart he knew that he had to use it on his work. He didn’t want to be afraid of wearing his heart on his sleeve, didn’t want to be afraid of people saying he wasn’t manly enough, didn’t want to be afraid to say he wasn’t interested in using a cordless hammer drill. He wanted to be able to follow his heart instead of living his days as all the same. And he wanted to have an amazing future, but he also wanted to have time to enjoy being with Dan. Life was a tricky balance when it came to matters of the heart.


End file.
